Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Republican Club Leader Advised Nazi Sympathizing, Anti-Muslim German Party

The newly elected president of a storied Republican club in New York City said he advised a virulently anti-Muslim and Nazi-symapathizing German party, the Daily Beast reported.

Ian Walsh Reilly was elected last week to lead the Metropolitan Republican Club, which has counted Theodore Roosevelt and Michael Bloomberg as members.

In a speech during the club’s elections, Reilly noted that he had consulted for Alternative furr Deutschland, or AfD.

“Last year I founded a consultancy with a friend who is also active in GOP politics. The Yorkville Group is what we called it,” Reilly said. “It has provided services, not just to statewide candidates like [New York candidate] Jonathan Trichter, but to international political parties like Alternative fur Deutschland.”

AfD has an anti-Muslim manifesto, and has ridiculed German efforts to apologize for reconcile with the history of the Holocaust and the Third Reich by calling for an end to the country’s “memory culture.”

Reilly told the Daily Beast that he “does not agree” with AfD’s stated hopes of shooting all asylum seekers. Reilly also said that, despite AfD being listed as a client on his consultancy’s website, no money changed hands.

“It wasn’t that I went after them, it was that someone who was part of the party knew I would be able to help them get access,” Reilly told the Daily Beast, adding that AfD wanted to communicate to American lawmakers what their policies are. “They are a very pro-American party, a lot of these people.”

Update, 2/28/19 — The Daily Beast updated their article to note that Trichter denied that Reilly’s group had anything to do with his campaign. Trichter, who is Jewish, said of Reilly, “He didn’t work for it. He didn’t volunteer for it. He didn’t even lick an envelope for it.”

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.